Dawkins on atheism and evolution

How about the other way round: my atheism made it easy for me to understand and accept evolution when I was a kid.

Interesting to see that interview on a site called Beliefnet. It was a good one, nonetheless.

In the last section of the interview, Dawkins talks about how people twist his words. Well, I don't recall reading anything by Dawkins where he actually suggests that atheism is a natural product of believing in evolution.

I'm curious, can anyone find such a suggestion?

I'd say that evolution lead me to atheism, although not the way you might expect:
1. From a young age I was always interested in science, but was a regular churchgoer and there was no real conflict.
2. I became aware that a particular part of science - evolution - was under attack from people called "creationists". So I looked at their arguments.
3. It became clear very quickly that all their arguments were utter crap. The vast majority of their arguments didn't relate to science at all, but were stupid claims along the line of "nothing could have died before the Fall of Man, so evolution is wrong".
4. Then I came to realise that just about all "sensible" theological claims were actually vaguer, more evasive or convoluted versions of the creationists' stupid theological claims...

Dawkins himself, the Arch-Atheist and Spawn of the Devil, will not say that the two must be related. Of course, expect some weaselling out of this by the pundits...

But the pundits on which side? On blogs, I've often argued that my atheism is not a result of my scientific views (it's more based on the unprovable hunch that the existence of a benevolent deity would imply a better world than the one we have) and have been accused as being a closet apologist for religion.

Oh, pundits is pundits... I am told by both theists and some atheists alike that my agnosticism is just cowardly atheism. It seems to me to maintain consistently that "don't know" is a reasonable view to take when you really don't know, in the face of such attacks, is itself braver than to just back down, one way or the other...

[NB: Not PZ Nominumdubium, by the way, he hates me for what I am.]

Are you equally "agnostic" about werewolves, the chupacapra, astrology, dowsing, and Poseidon?

No surprise, I hate this constant strawman being levied at Dawkins as well. My atheism comes from the fact that I think the idea of God(s), especially in the face of modern science, is a highly unparsimonious notion. It doesn't come from the fact that I accept evolution, at least not directly.

I am not agnostic about things that I can show don't exist, or I have extremely good reasons not to think exist due to theoretical concerns. A deity that makes no differences physically is beyond proof or disproof.

Many theologians, in their attempt to criticize "intelligent design", say something like "Why can't evolution just be God's method for making life?"

But this is surely nonsense, since if there were anything from a nonmaterial (spirit) world that had anything at all to do with directing evolution, then Darwinism is false.

In that sense, theism and Darwinism are inconsistent, unless it is a theism that has its god or gods totally detached from the material world for all time.

I've said before that theists can be perfectly good scientists and that atheism is not a necessary outcome of scientific training, and you have to wait until Dawkins says it before you believe it?

Re: "theists can be perfectly good scientists"

I don't see how this is possible, if a good scientist is one who believes Darwinism (that is, the two are logically inconsistent).

Paul: of course I knew that before Dawkins said it - I've said it before. But it's a response to those who say Dawkins thinks it...

I am not agnostic about things that I can show don't exist, or I have extremely good reasons not to think exist due to theoretical concerns. A deity that makes no differences physically is beyond proof or disproof.

I don't know if this was at all addressed to me, but it appears we take what is essentially the same position but label it differently. Specifically, I think the existence of god(s) is a non-issue. When it is framed in a way that is physically consequential, it is obviously false, and it is otherwise physically non-consequential and unfalsifiable. Theism is simply an unparsimonious assertion that I, as an atheist, do without.

In order to somehow tie atheism to evolution, one must first show that acceptance of evolution conflicts with "any" religion, not just the abrahamic religions. The acceptance of evolution does not conflict with a hypothetical religion that has compatible claims about life & the universe.

I have a problem with Dawkins' assertion that natural selection is not a random process. Ok, I understand that natural selection as a process can be considered deterministic. However, the variables of the process, such as laws of physics, the amount of energy, the kinds of present atoms and molecules, etc. are not explained by any kind of 'guidance'. In other words, if the initial state of the universe is 'random' (or, not designed), then it shouldn't matter whether or not you can then find deterministic subcomponents in the process.

I don't have a problem with all of this being unguided. But, this appears to be a major problem to a lot of people and I don't like Dawkins' answer.

Re: "theists can be perfectly good scientists"
I don't see how this is possible, if a good scientist is one who believes Darwinism (that is, the two are logically inconsistent).

Quantum mechanics and general relativity are logically inconsistent. That doesn't make practitioners in either field bad scientists. Heck, the various theories of evolution are logically inconsistent with each other, though not dramatically so. It is a foolhardy scientist that thinks the theories they work with are strictly true, and it is entirely possibly to do good work with a theory you believe to be strictly speaking false. It's the methodology, not the beliefs, that count in a scientist. Although, to be fair, the cognitive dissonance between some beliefs (young earth creationism, the special creation of humans) and the scientific evidence just doesn't appear to be tenable; you either end up with the beliefs being abandoned, or truly craptacular methodology in service of the beliefs.

I changed my declaration of agnosticism to one of atheism after noticing that in everyday life I was assuming that no God was out there. In other words, the model of reality with which I was operating didn't feature a God, and from that I realized (rather than 'decided') that I was an atheist. I guess that such reasoning puts me in some school of philosophical thought, but not being very philosophical, I dunno.

As I've said before, many agnostics could just as well call themselves atheists, simply by (implicitly or explicitly) retaining the option to change their minds should new evidence appear. I don't consider that sort of agnosticism "cowardly", just non-minimal.

Note that I have encountered "spirits" and the like; based on my own experiences, I concluded that they were not properly attached to "objective reality".

George Smith maintains that atheism vs. theism and agnosticism vs. gnosticism(?) are orthogonal - The first is your acceptance or lack thereof of existence of god(s), and the second is a position on the knowability of the existence of god(s). Therefore, according to someone like Smith, agnosticism does not get you off the hook; it is not a comfortable middle ground.

My experience of spirits was lysergically boosted. I chose later to reject their objectivity.

On being a "practical" atheist while being a "metaphysical" or "epistemic" agnostic - I live as though there is no god or afterlife, etc., because I have not yet seen the slightest evidence for either. But if you ask me to justify the claim that a god exists (and that god doesn't imply any empirical counterfactual claims), I can neither affirm nor deny that god's existence.

I suppose one might recast Thor so as to be empirically insulated.

It seems to me, that psychologically speaking, one is an atheist based on one's starting point of personal investigation. I started out an atheist, so agnosticism is a slight adjustment for consistency's sake (though I was very religious for a few years there). But it appears to me that many atheists are reacting to some predominant point of view they encountered beforehand and which they had to take a stand on. If you are an atheist, then you are usually a Hindu Muslim, Catholic, Protestant and so forth atheist. [As Shaw, I think, said - the French have no religion, and the religion they do not have is Catholicism.] This is fair enough, and it may later be generalised to cover all religions. But agnosticism is a position that has no prior religion to have a beef with, so long as it doesn't require believing that the world is round or sheep will breed different coats if mated in front of striped poles, & c.

On logical consistency - it is unclear to me whether or not evolution is consistent or otherwise with a generalised belief in God. Belief in a special creation-style God, yes, but not, say, a Spinozan or Leibnizian god. So while I agree that evolution is inconsistent with the idea of a god that skews the results in ways we can't detect, it is not inconsistent with a god who is responsible for being and the nature of things in general (i.e., existence of the universe, and the laws under which it operates). That is the sort of god I can't tell whether exists or not.

But that sort of god has no interest in me or who I sleep with or cheat, and so on, and is unlikely to have the slightest effect on how I choose to live (or why I choose it), so I am in practical or operational terms an atheist, sure. Just don't ask me to tell a believer that they are completely wrong, because I can't (and neither can anyone else, no matter what they believe they can say).

John W: But it appears to me that many atheists are reacting to some predominant point of view they encountered beforehand and which they had to take a stand on. If you are an atheist, then you are usually a Hindu Muslim, Catholic, Protestant and so forth atheist.

This was also generally acknowledged among the Neo-Pagans I used to hang out with. I'd say it has less to do with intellectual choices, than with the imprinting and habits aquired during childhood. For example, I've heard some semi-serious discussion of the difference between "Catholic guilt" and "Jewish guilt"....

John, your position is similar to mine, ie. that the degree of unbelief is sensitive to the details of the god-concept in question (we agree often enough to make you my Smarter Twin -- who wisely stays almost as far away from me as is geographically possible. But I digress). However, I prefer to identify as atheist rather than agnostic.

It seems to me, that psychologically speaking, one is an atheist based on one's starting point of personal investigation.
There's probably something to that. A few years ago when I had abandoned the last shreds of my (by then quite liberal) faith, I referred to myself as agnostic for a while. In retrospect, I can see that I was using the term as a wishy-washy (OK, cowardly ;-) synonym of atheist. What tipped the scales for me was encountering an old acquaintance from fundy days (someone I had seen only occasionally for ~20 years), and having a discussion which included my (lack of) faith and so on. Reviewing the conversation later, it seemed to me I had probably come across as ambivalent and confused -- when in fact I was neither. I was then as now, damned sure that his God does not exist ("Bronze Age ergot-inspired nightmare", as I have elsewhere referred to the fundamentalist deity), was quite comfortable with that fact, and was getting on with my life more or less as before, only sans church involvements. So I decided: "Damnit, I'm an atheist and I don't care who knows". That little talk did me a world of good, though probably not in the way my old friend would have preferred ;-).

Of course I can't pronounce either way on vague or non-falsifiable god definitions, so am strictly speaking agnostic as averaged over the entire set of possible gods -- but I'm quite certain (barring the usual irreducible epistemic background noise) that there exists no god worth my bothering about. Since "atheist" describes my position w.r.t. all the gods that matter, that seems to be the most useful label to wear.